Test kitchen

Better Nutrition, Jan, 2004 by Sarah Gregory

On 16 Friday mornings each year, 10-12 volunteers-mostly women in their 70s and 80s-gather in the kitchen of the United Methodist Church of Belton, Missouri. title first to arrive is Faye Wallace, a retired bookkeeper who wipes down the counters, turns on the ovens and starts making ]rot wrier at 7:30.

In the modest church kitchen, Wallace and other volunteers cook hundreds of pounds of meats and vegetables--and as many as 250 other recipe items--until they are table-ready. The resulting feast would be suitable for any church function, but no one ever has the pleasure of eating it. By about 10:30 a.m., the food finds a temporary home in the bellies of gallon-sized glass jars on their way to a nearby US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lab in Lenexa, Kansas. At the lab, giant blenders grind the food into testing consistency as part of the Total Diet Study, a 42-year-old FDA program that monitors contaminant and nutrient levels in the typical American diet.

The testing, which is performed for 4-5 weeks four times a year, can reveal the presence of more than 300 different pesticides and industrial chemicals and 15 elements. The foods are brought to Belton from different cities in each of the four geographic regions of the country (West, North Central, South and Northeast). Wallace's involvement with the program began in the mid-1980s, when the FDA needed a new food preparation site close to its Lenexa lab. Willing to lend a hand, she and other members of her church volunteered.

Lacking professional culinary and scientific training, the Belton women were perfect cooks for the study. "The program is really a survey to ensure that the American diet is safe and nutritious," says FDA scientist Chris Sack. "Generally, we just need someone to prepare the food as you would at home."

Sometimes the volunteers ask if a test batch's levels of pesticides and other chemicals were within acceptable limits, but they don't dwell on the greater national importance of what they do, Wallace says. They enjoy the sense of community and camaraderie fostered in the church kitchen, and they take pride in raising money for a good cause. In exchange for the volunteers' services, fire FDA donates $9,600 to the United Methodist Women's Organization each year. The women compensate the church for electricity and water used during food preparation and donate the rest to various church causes.

Last year, part of the money was put toward the construction of a new Belton United Methodist Church building, including a new kitchen the volunteers moved into in October. Among the perks of the new kitchen are an electric stove--complete with fume vent--and the promise of a new conveyor-belt-style dishwasher. The vent alone makes a difference. In the old kitchen, a fishy odor hung in the air, and the fryer constantly set off the smoke alarm.

Wallace says she expects that she and other members of her group will continue cooking for the FDA as long as they're able. One of the oldest volunteers is 95 years old. She doesn't help out in the kitchen anymore, but she still does her part by soliciting volunteers for each food preparation day. All of which proves that you really can't have too many cooks to test the brew.